Megachurch is defined by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research as “any congregation with a sustained average weekly attendance of 2,000 persons or more in its worship services.”
In 1980, there were about 50 U.S. churches that big. Today, according to a recent Hartford survey, there are more than 1,200.
Alaska has two, according to the survey: ChangePoint, with an average Sunday attendance of 2,500 people, and the Anchorage Baptist Temple, with 2,000.
Both pale size-wise compared with the largest megachurches Outside, which report Sunday attendance near 20,000.
The largest is Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, which drew a Sunday average of 30,000 people last year.
In a cover story last year in Business Week magazine, megachurch pastors described the initiatives behind their success. All had conducted market research that found a lot of Americans shy away from church because they consider the services dull, ritualistic or negative.
To counter those perceptions, today’s most popular churches make Sunday services more welcoming and homey, with rich coffee and lively music and casual dress. “Churchy” elements such as stained glass, wooden pews and unsettling replicas of the Christian cross have been eliminated.
“… Savvy leaders are creating Sunday schools that look like Disney World and church cafes with the appeal of Starbucks,” Business Week reported.
The tone of Sunday sermons has changed as well.
While nearly all megachurches share a conservative theology, many pastors prefer to emphasize positive messages of Christianity over negative, dwelling more on self-improvement agendas than condemning alternative lifestyles. This sets them apart from culture warriors in more politically active fundamentalist congregations.
But megachurch ministers are hardly all the same. Some, such as Lakewood pastor Joel Osteen, go so far as to define self-improvement as self-enrichment and preach a “prosperity gospel” that leads to personal wealth. Others emphasize a type of self-improvement that encourages members to reject materialism and help the less fortunate in society.
ChangePoint appears to lean toward the latter.
“We believe that when that peace resides in your heart … you become a person who can really love as Christ loved,” says lead pastor Karl Clauson. “Which is not with a need for personal gain, but the joy of giving your life away.”